Buhari/Osinbaji campaign gets N54m from ordinary Nigerians

The Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, has said his desire not to become a hostage to any money bag in the country is the reason behind his decision to rely on the sacrifices of ordinary Nigerians to fund his campaign.

Buhari said this at a press briefing on the Buhari Crowd Funding Platform on Tuesday. He announced that a total N54,415,386.70 had so far been received as donations through direct deposit and sale of cards.

Buhari said, “My strength mainly are the ordinary people and the N100 they are contributing. It is a lot of money for them but I know they will make the sacrifice especially when I said I am not going to sign the cheque to get even a kobo out of that account. 

“That is why I depend on them. We are taking this idea from what we have seen in the United States when Barack Obama came out to contest, he was a coloured person, the big companies were not for him and so on. 

“But he was able to finance his campaign without looking for money-bags or anybody influential. So, he remained independent and was not held hostage by anybody. And this is what I want to achieve.”

He expressed the confidence that the financial support he was receiving from ordinary Nigerians would see him through the campaign period.

Buhari Support Organisation currently had 82 registered support groups with over 475,796 coordinators and a total membership in the region of 8,492,226 across the country.

Buhari explained that the organisation intended to use the registration and donation cards to enlist the members of the groups as volunteer change agents and also to capture the spatial distribution of its donors.

While acknowledging that Nigerians were going through a difficult time, he expressed the confidence that they would make the requisite sacrifices to bring about a positive change.